


November Chill

by Lynniethebeegirl



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-04-21 04:49:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 10,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4815671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynniethebeegirl/pseuds/Lynniethebeegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lafontaine and Perry and Danny are in a relationship. Lots of cute domestic stuff and also plenty of angst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> I really did not intend to write this but I actually really like how it turned out so here it is.

The years after Silas pass quickly, most of the old gang choosing to settle in southern Ontario, near Laf and Perry’s hometown. Danny begins working as an English teacher and basketball coach at a local center for juvenile delinquents. Laf works at a lab a few towns over, doing experimental biomedical technology. It’s a fascinating job, and Laf eventually branches off into their own projects, often involving supernatural creatures. 

Perry works from home, teaching courses in German to homeschooled students online. She and Danny bond over the ridiculous things their students hand in, and when Laf and Perry move out of the apartment and into a house on the edge of town, Danny follows, living in the upstairs of an old warehouse across the street. She helps Perry clean up the kitchen on nights when Laf stays too late at the lab, and gives Laf space to do science experiments in her kitchen when Perr has put her foot down about the ‘no science in my kitchen rule’. Soon Danny has become a daily part of their lives, and when Laf and Perry (With assistance from Danny and JP) finish renovating the basement apartment, they offer her a place to stay.

Danny declines, choosing instead to save the basement apartment for Carmilla and Laura, when they visit, and JP, when he chooses to live with them. And they continue, Danny spending more time with them than in her own apartment, and helping to keep an eye on JP, as he attempts to adjust to the twenty-first century. Laf and Perry keep tabs on Laura and Carmilla, and hold them to their promise to visit at least twice a year. It’s difficult though, and even with Danny’s assistance they only know as much as Carmilla and Laura want them too. The three of them try to respect their friends choices, and things get better after a few years, Laura and Carmilla staying the basement apartment for a few weeks in winter and summer, satisfying Carmilla’s desire for Laura’s safety, and Laura’s need for a taste of the seasons she had grown up with.

After a bad shoulder fracture from an ill-conceived dare, Danny moves into the spare bedroom of the house. They soon fall into a comfortable routine, Danny and Perry cooking and cleaning in the early mornings and evenings when Laf is at the lab, and Danny and Laf taking weekend trips to investigate the bizarre occurrences in the area, from possible ghost sightings to something that looks suspiciously like JP ran into a bear and panicked. 

Even after Danny’s arm is healed, she keeps living there, helping with the bills as Laf switches jobs to work at a different, slightly more covert lab, and Perry goes back to school, and begins doing freelance editing work in her spare time.

And when it happens, they almost don’t notice.

All three of them are snuggled up on the futon in the living room, stretched out under layers of blankets for their traditional Friday night movie night. Tonight’s pick is “Fried Green Tomatoes”, which Laf enjoys for Frank Bennet’s grisly but well deserved demise, and Perry loves for Ruth’s sweetness. Tonight Danny is just grateful for the warm blankets around her, soothing the ache from the bruises she had gotten breaking up a fight at school that week.  
When it comes time for them to separate and head to their rooms, they don’t move, they just scoot closer to each other in the November chill. Laf wraps their arms around Perry, and Danny curls around both of them. The cold air, and the warmth under the blankets puts the three of them to sleep quickly, tangled together in a pile.


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is more cute stuff if that's your jam. Slight angler fish based angst on Perry's part.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is going off what's happened by s2 e32 in terms of Perry and the anglerfish.

The next morning Danny is woken by Laf getting up to make the traditional Saturday morning pancakes. She lies quietly for a moment, remembering why she isn’t in her room, and why her arms are still wrapped around Perry.

To Danny’s surprise, when Laf comes back into the room and leans down to give Perry a good morning kiss on the forehead, they plant one on Danny’s as well. She lies there for a little longer, until Perry wakes up, and then hauls her aching body out to the kitchen to help Laf with the pancakes. 

The next few Friday nights happen similarly, and it soon becomes routine, continuing for months.

Then one weeknight in February, Danny awakes in the middle of the night to hear a soft cry, and then ragged sobs coming from the room down the hall. Getting up to investigate, she finds Perry huddled in bed, shaking. Laf is awake to, rubbing Perry’s shoulders and trying to comfort her.

“There was blood, blood everywhere…I killed them. I killed them all.” Perry folds herself over, trying to protect herself from some unseen horror. Danny slips into bed next to her, enfolding her in a Danny-sized hug.

“You’re safe, you’re safe. We won’t let anyone hurt you.” Danny kisses Perry’s cheeks and forehead, rocking back and forth until Perry has relaxed enough to lie under the covers, with Danny and Laf on either side of her, holding her tightly.

“We love you.” Laf whispers into Perry’s ear, and the three of them drift into an uneasy sleep.

The next morning they wake up to two feet of fresh snowfall, and the entire town is effectively shut down. The group stays in bed late, silent, enjoying the feeling of warm bodies against their skin. At one point Perry presses a soft kiss to Danny’s lips, and another to her cheek. Danny isn’t sure what the correct way to react is, but she curls closer to Perry, the soft lavender scent of Perry’s shampoo sending her into a doze.

When they get out of bed, they go about their snow day normally, not acknowledging what had happened the night before. Laf and Danny clear the front walkway and driveway while Perry makes cocoa and toast for breakfast, and after the dishes are cleared the three of them bundle up and head out to the backyard for fun in the snow.  
Perry and Danny start by making a snow man family, with three larger snowmen, and many little snow people in between them. Then they turn to help Laf, with their attempt to create a snow replica of Frankenstein’s lab, complete with a lightning spire. Several hours later as the sky begins to darken they tromp inside, shedding layers of snow gear, and gather in the kitchen to make soup for dinner. 

The three of them eat sitting on the couch, and afterword’s they stay there, Danny’s arms wrapped around Laf, and her head on Perry’s shoulder. They hadn’t discussed the previous night’s sleeping arrangement, but when it comes time to go to bed that night, Laf pulls Danny into the room they share with Perry, sandwiching her between the two of them.

And that was the beginning of forever for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone knows how to do paragraph breaks in ao3 can you tell me because this formatting is driving me nuts.


	3. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More into Lafontaine and Danny's relationship. A bit of anglerfish angst. Have fun.

On a Friday in August they get a call from JP, in Maine of all places. It turns out that while not all blood banks have security guards on duty at two am, this one did, and JP needs someone to bail him out and help him with legal issues. And this is also the weekend that Perry has to be in Ottawa for a conference.

So on Saturday morning the three of them load up the car, dropping Perry off in Ottawa before crossing the border. She kisses them both, making Danny promise to keep Laf from doing anything crazy. Shortly after leaving Silas Laf had gone on a road trip to Saskatchewan, and having gotten lost several times, decided to pull over in a parking lot to sleep. Nothing terrible had happened, but ever since Perry had found out she’d insisted that either she or Danny accompany Laf on long trips.

Seven hours and more detours than either wanted to admit, Laf and Danny make it to Maine, much too late to begin to tackle the JP situation. They pull into a rundown motel and haul themselves in, Danny immediately pulling off her top and sitting down in front of the air conditioner. Laf goes and showers, and when they come back they pull out the bottle of gray liquid. It’s Saturday, of course.

Danny lies on the bed, and Laf smears the liquid across the ropy scars cris-crossing Danny’s chest and stomach from her shoulders to her waistband. The concoction that Laf makes in the lab is meant to prevent any ill effects from the cursed sword. Danny used to apply it herself, struggling to get the liquid properly applied, but the past few months Laf has been helping, and it’s become one of their many Saturday traditions. She closes her eyes, the motion relaxing despite the stifling late summer heat.  
“Hey, um, Perry wanted me to ask you something.” Laf caps the bottle, but keeps running their fingertips along the scars, rubbing in the medicine.   
“mm” Danny moves her head slightly.

“So when the dean was in her body she did this to you, she stabbed you. And she’s been worried, since we’ve started all this, that having her close to you and touching you is going to upset you.”

“She knows I don’t blame her, doesn’t she?” Danny remembers the years of fear, when she and Perry hadn’t been able to spend more than a few minutes in the same room before one of them started crying. Is this relationship putting them back?

“You know how Perr is. She wants to check every door twice, and take a picture of the oven dials. She’s just worried, that’s all.” Laf kisses Danny’s cheek and lies down next to her, still absentmindedly running their fingers across Danny’s skin.

“Is it going to upset her if she sees the scars?” Danny thinks of what it would be like, being bare in front of Perry, the hands that had opened the gashes touching her skin. It had been the dean, not Perry, that had hurt Danny, and she’d made her peace with that years ago. But Perry had seen it happen, unable to control the dean’s actions through her.

“I don’t know. It’s hard to tell what’s going to set her off sometimes.” Laf kisses Danny again, resting their cheek against her shoulder. “We’ll get through it though. We’ve been through worse.”


	4. Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some graphic violence, body horror, ect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know its a weird chapter, I'm writing another thing later to cover what Laura and Carm are up to so that should explain stuff.

The call comes a week later, and it’s Lafontaine that picks up the phone. Strangled sobs come across the line, only a few informative words in the entire thirty second call.  
Danny and Perry come home to Laf standing in the kitchen, very pale.

“Laura got hurt.” Danny’s heart almost stops when she hears the words.

“How bad.” 

“Bad.” Laf has packed up the car, and their things and Perry’s. Danny’s things are scattered around, some in her old room, some in the room she shares with Laf and Perry. She gathers her things quickly, and they get on the road, leaving JP with information about where they’d gone.

The minivan, which Laf primarily used for transporting lab equipment, has ample space for three people. It’s two or three days nonstop to southern Arizona, and none of them want to waste a minute. 

They fall into a routine, one driver, one navigator, and one person sleeping on the air mattress in the back, preparing to take over driving. Danny and Laf drive the most; Perry spends the entire trip in a state of constant breakdown. 

When they pull into the hospital parking lot late at night, a nurse at the desk sends them up to the ICU without many questions.

“How is she?” Danny asks. Carmilla moves into a seated position from where she’d been slumped over sideways on the waiting room bench.

“Alive.” Danny, Laf, and Perry listen silently as Carm fills them in. They’d been in Colombia on one of Laura’s journalism projects when a mine went off under the truck they’d been in. Carmilla hadn’t worn a seat belt and had been thrown clear, but Laura had been trapped in the burning vehicle. By the time Carm had pulled her out over eighty-five percent of her skin had been charred.

Extensive burns, fractures on both arms and legs, crushed ribs, a collapsed lung, tears in her intestines, a cracked skull and possible brain damage. 

Any other hospital and Laura would have died on the operating table. But after witnessing the speed of light response to an emergency, Danny recognizes that many, if not all, people employed here are vampires. When she questions Carmilla about it, she just gets a shrug and a short mutter.

“Hundreds of years, we can drop nine or ten on med school.”

Laura is in surgery when the group gets there, her third one in less than three days since she’d been brought there. The first two had both lasted over ten hours, and this one is no different.

When they’re finally allowed to see her, none of them can be in the room with her. They stand on one side of a glass wall, watching the monitors above Laura’s head tap out her slow heartbeat. She’s wrapped in so many bandages it’s difficult to tell of it’s really her. The only part of her they can see is half of her face, most of it obscured by bandages or the breathing tube in her mouth.

She has surgery again twice over the next few days, and when she comes out of the last one she’s weak but stable. 

When the bandages are removed a week later, everyone involved is pleasantly shocked at the translucent skin stretched across the raw burns. She’s healing faster than she should under the circumstances, and her smoke damaged lungs are on the same road to recovery.

It takes weeks though, before she can be removed from her medically induced coma. The team lives out of the back of their van, sleeping on the narrow air mattress, showering in the hospital. They spend every moment, waking and sleeping, together, and every moment they can they keep an eye on Carmilla.

Laura opens her eyes three weeks after the explosion, and one day before Danny and Perry need to leave, taking a plane back home. Danny had been able to wiggle out of work, between the end of summer vacation, and the abrupt switching of her job to a separate school, for the past few weeks, but really needed to get back. Perry also had editing work to do, and they need to get the house ready for Laura and Carmilla to come home.


	5. More pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lots of anglerfish angst, trigger warning for some blood and gore that is honestly kind of excessive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry. Next week will return to trash I promise.

The first few days are a flurry of activity, moving Danny’s things out of her old room so that JP can use it, and cleaning out the basement apartment for Laura and Carmilla. Danny returns to work, this time at an all-girls facility. She ends the week with bruises and possibly cracked ribs after breaking up several fights.

One evening, a few days before Laf, Laura, and Carmilla are set to return, Perry asks to see the scars. Danny strips her shirt off, and lies on the bed, Perry sitting next to her, staring at the marks.

“You can touch them if you want.” Danny closes her eyes has Perry’s hands skim across her scars. The memories of those last few weeks at Silas flood her brain.

Her hands bound behind her, kneeling on the hot tile in the catacombs. The blood staining the sword, streaming down her chest and legs to pool at her knees before sinking into the cracks, causing the room to heat up slightly with every drop. The dean standing in front of her, the glittering sword slicing deep into her with every stroke. The normally familiar features twisted into rage.

Perry’s hand hovers over the deepest gash, a puckered scar about six inches long on Danny’s chest, starting where her heart is, and then continuing down. The kill slice. Danny shouldn’t have survived it, but she had.

The soft fingers glide across her skin, and she holds her breath to keep from shuddering. Perry would never hurt her, she knew that, but the dean’s mangled voice coming from Perry’s mouth is stuck in Danny’s head. ‘you will die here.’ The dean had told her so many times, and the first few times Danny had managed to say something brave, something someone could be proud of. By the third day underground any possible words were silence, and when the swords strokes began to fall quicker, whimpers and screams.

She’d fallen, already broken arm fracturing, shards poking through her skin. And the dean had held her down, forcing her to look eye to eye as she pressed the sword into Danny’s skin.

She had screamed, cried, begged for her life. Too weak to save herself, how had she ever thought she’d ever be able to protect Laura?

And when the dean had thought she was close to death and left her, Danny had lain on the ground, blood streaming from her body. The room had gotten warmer and warmer, burning her side and cheek, turning her lungs to fire.

She’d screamed, sobbed, begging for another hour, another few moments, for death, for life, to hear someone’s voice again, to die alone, so no one could see her like this. Part of the person she’d been before that had died in that cavern, the proud girl, the strong one, the one that would give her life for what was right.

And when she’d come out, after Carmilla had found her and dragged her back up to Laura, she was broken, unable to look any of her friends in the eye. Laura, who had depended on her to be the hero, Kirsch, who had been so happy to be her friend, but the friend he’d had was dead, just leaving this shell of a person.

She’d failed the Summer Society, and despite the forgiveness of the surviving sisters, she saw the ones she’d failed to save every night. She found some comfort in Carmilla and her own bucket of hurt, topped off with a bottle of vodka. Carmilla had her own issues, with Laura, with Mattie, and Danny, and the comfort she found with her only lasted as long as the liquor did.

Perry was the only person remotely as messed up as Danny, and was the last place Danny could go for help. Anything, even something as simple as being in the same room as one another could send both of them into panic and tears.

Weeks later they’d been forced by necessity to move in together, Danny, Perry, Lafontaine, and Kirsch, a tiny band of broken people trying to survive in a world with a completely different set of horrors that Silas had failed to prepare them for. She and Perry had stuck to a ridged schedule, not seeing each other for months, their only contact being hearing each other’s screams at night, nightmares tearing thought both of them.

But here she was, lying still with Perry’s hands on her body. Both of them are struggling to keep it together, ragged breathing filling the room.

Curly hair brushes against Danny’s side, and Perry presses her lips to the scar on Danny’s chest. They crawl under the blankets together, and Danny finally feels her exterior crack, and the tears begin running down her face. Perry begins to cry to, and they cling together, the warmth keeping them from falling apart completely.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one is a little more Laura and Carmilla centric.

Perry and Danny drive to Ottawa to pick up Laf, Laura, and Carmilla, on a Saturday, the sky chilly and overcast, but no rain in sight. They watch as the plane lands, and wait as people stream out of the jetway. Just as they’re beginning to worry, Laf comes trudging down, enfolding Perry and Danny in a bear hug.

Carmilla and Laura come down last, Carm pushing Laura in a wheelchair. Laura is slumped over, face pale, but she has the strength to hang onto the arms and brace herself against the bumps in the floor.

“Xena.”

“Fangface.”

The greeting is brisk, but relieves some of the uncertainty in the air. Danny hugs Carmilla, asking how Laura is.

“Pain meds are wearing off, she needs rest.” Carmilla whispers. Danny nods, and kneels next to Laura’s wheelchair.

“Laura? You okay?” Danny asks, and Laura lifts her head, forcing a weak smile.

“Tired, that’s all.” She pushes herself upright, face pinched in pain. Her arms tremble from the exertion, and she slumps over again. Danny gets up and takes the handles, pushing Laura towards the elevator.

***

By the time they get home both Laura and Carmilla look half dead from exhaustion. Perry hauls Laf and Carmilla upstairs immediately to discuss the medical situation and arrange all Laura’s medications in carefully labelled pill organizers. Carmilla moves to lift Laura out of the car, but Danny shakes her head, sending her inside. At the rate Carm is going she’s doing well to get herself up the stairs without collapsing from exhaustion. Danny can’t imagine her managing to get Laura in the house safely. 

“Hey, ready?” Danny gently shakes Laura awake, and when she’s lucid enough to nod slowly, Danny lifts her up and carried her inside.

The basement apartment isn’t much, one room with a kitchen area, an old couch against one wall, and a bed in the corner. Danny goes to set her down, but Laura whimpers in pain and Danny freezes, sitting on the bed.

“Laura?” Danny stays as still as possible, but even the smallest movement causes Laura to wince. She’s tiny in Danny’s arms, tinier than she’s ever been, limbs like twigs, hair cropped close to her scalp. None of that radiance that Danny had always seen, none of the fire. She’s just tiny and broken, gripping Danny’s sweatshirt desperately. 

“Hurts.” Laura gasps out a word, finally, and Danny nods.

“I know. I’m going to move you on three okay?” Danny counts quickly, and deposits Laura onto the sheets, tugging a blanket over her.

“Do you need more pain meds?” Danny gets some perkaset, the strongest pain meds that she has on hand, and a glass of water. She props Laura up, giving her sips of water to wash down the pill.

“Thank you.” Laura brushes her hand against Danny’s and slumps against the pillow, eyes sunken. 

“I’m going to go see what Carm, Perry, and Laf are up to, and then one of us will be back down. Are you okay for a few minutes?”

“Yeah.” Laura whispers, and Danny goes upstairs to free Carm from Perry’s hundreds of questions about Laura.

“I gave her a perkaset, that’s the strongest thing I’ve got. What was she on at the hospital?” 

“Morphine.” Carmilla’s voice is low, and her eyes seem darker than usual, her shoulders hunched under the weight of her backpack. Danny can only remember knowing a few people who had been on morphine, usually people in their last few days of life. 

Danny helps Carmilla unstrap the backpack from her shoulders and carries it down the stairs, setting it on the table. Carmilla follows, hesitating as she catches sight of Laura sleeping.

“She’s just resting. You should get some sleep to.” Danny steps towards the door, but stops, realizing that Carmilla is shaking. “Hey, Carm, she’s going to be okay.”  
Danny folds Carmilla in a hug, and when she pulls away there’s a damp patch on her shoulder.

“Go to sleep.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Graphic descriptions of violence, suicide mention, body horror, blood and gore. Have fun.

Dark stone walls, winding tunnels, a deep darkness only lit by the dull glow of the cursed sword. The tunnel opening into an open space, tiles covering the walls and floor, a sickening bloody light seeping from the cracks between them. And Perry..no…not her, the Dean, standing in the center, flashing Danny a sickeningly sweet grimace before the room gives a sharp pulse, and Danny falls unconscious.

She wakes up with her arms bound behind her, kneeling on the sharp tiles, held up by some unseen force.

“Hello dear, you’re late.” The Dean steps into view, the sword clutched in her hands. 

That had been the beginning, Danny kneeling, the Dean standing before her, motionless, occasionally whispering ‘you will die here’ in a voice soft enough that Danny could almost think it was her mind playing tricks on her.

The second or third time Danny doesn’t respond, the Dean moves closer, kneeling, her face inches from Danny’s.

“You’re already dead. It’s been days, do you think anyone is still looking for you?” 

Danny stays silent, dehydration robbing her of any strength to respond. The Dean draws the sword, running it across Danny’s collarbone, smiling as the first drops of blood stain the tiles, which glow brightly at the contact.

The Dean leans forwards, chest pressed against Danny, reaching behind her to untie her hands. She considers fighting, but the room pulses sharply, sending stabs of pain through her head, banishing any coherent thoughts. 

The Dean carves lines into Danny’s arms, from the inside of her elbow to her palms. Deep, but not so deep as to kill her. The room begins to pulse faster, and Danny feels her heart squeezed in time with it, forcing blood through her veins. The sword bites into her chest again, this time carving a line from ribs to throat. Then shoulder to pelvis, blood spattering The Deans face, flying off the edge of the sword. The room pulses faster, as blood pumps out of her, heart fluttering.

Then The Dean shifts, eyes softening into wide eyes, scared eyes,

“Danny?” Perry stares from Danny, to the bloody sword in her hands, back to Danny. 

Danny tries to speak, to comfort her, to offer some assurance of helplessness. But she can’t, the pulsing the only thing keeping her heart beating.

Perry collapses, screaming and sobbing, as far away from Danny as she can get. Huddled in the corner, she grasps the blade of the sword, slashing her neck, wrists, trying to destroy the body the Dean is using, but the Dean regains control, once again, standing in front of Danny.

“You will die here.” She lifts the sword, cleaving Danny from right shoulder to left hip, and Danny feels a scream torn from her lips, followed by broken sobs, and then a release as the bonds holding her upright vanishes, sending her toppling to the floor, blood streaming from her wounds.

The Dean is on top of her, body pressed against her, mouth too close to her face, breath in her lungs.

“You will die here.” Danny feels the sword driven into her chest, tip scraping at her ribs, tearing downwards. 

Her face flickers, softening to Perry again, who sobs, wrenching the sword upwards, throwing it to the side where it clatters to the floor. She sobs, blood streaming out of her, seeping into the cracks, the room glowing brighter. She slumps over, lacking the strength to move away from Danny, shaking against Danny’s mutilated body.

Danny feels the last bit of strength she has running in her veins, and she lifts a hand, cupping Perry’s cheek, kissing her. 

“I’m sorry.” Danny whispers. For what she doesn’t know, but…

“Danny!” She jerks awake, tears streaming down her face, Laf shaking her. “It’s just a dream, just a dream.”

“She was scared, she was so scared.” Danny clings to Laf in the dark, sobbing into their shoulder. “I was scared, but it was worse for her. She was so scared.”

“I know baby, I know.” Laf rubs Danny’s back, letting her cry. “You’re safe now, everyone is safe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone still reads this can you comment and let me know? Bc I try to update this fairly regularly but if nobody reads it I'll just update when I have extra time.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A continuation of the last chapter. More angst. No more anglerfish angst after this though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm starting a new fic that's more Laf centric and takes place right after they take down the dean. Less focus on Danny and more on Laf and Perry's relationship. Lots of angst.

“Where is Perry?” Danny gets her breathing under control enough to wonder why there are only two people in the room.

“She went out to the kitchen, she didn’t want to scare you.” Laf kisses Danny’s shoulder gently. “Are you okay?”

Danny nods, squeezing Laf’s hand, and then getting up and going out to see Perry.

She’s sitting at the table in her pajamas, harsh fluorescent lighting illuminating her tired eyes.

“Hi.” Danny sits across from her, taking her hand. “I’m sorry.” She watches Perry’s face, watches as she closes her eyes tightly, jaw clenched, hands shaking.

Danny runs her fingertips along the scars on Perry’s arm, the same as the ones on Danny. They’d talked about this, about what had happened, about what both of them had done. But it always came back to this, to tears and shaking, to fear.

“Please. Talk to me.” Danny whispers, holding both of Perry’s hands. Perry’s eyes are still shut, but she begins to cry, silent tears rolling down her cheeks.

“When the dean took over I couldn’t see. I didn’t know what she was doing. I couldn’t…” Perry trails off again, shoulders shaking. “I woke up and you were there and I didn’t…I didn’t know where I was, I just saw the sword in my hand and I knew there was something inside me that was killing, and I had to kill it.”

Danny sees Laf standing in a doorway, and both of them turn to Perry.

“I thought I’d killed more. Laf, Laura, Carmilla. There was so much blood, so much blood. I tried to kill the body the dean was using but she took me back. She didn’t try to conceal it that last time, and it hurt so much. It felt like my spine was splitting open, my limbs, my head. And I saw you dying. I saw your body dead and cold, and it hurt so much. Every night I feel the dean splitting me open, and see you both dead.”

Perry opens her eyes, and they’re tired, and scared, and have seen so many things that no human should ever be subjected to.

“I’m sorry.” Danny says, softly, unable to think of anything else to say. Every time Perry speaks about Silas, a new horror spill from her lips.

Danny gets up, and stand by the table hesitantly, arms out. Perry stands cautiously, and leans against Danny, who closes her eyes, rocking back and forth, arms wrapped tightly around Perry.


	9. Chapter 9

Danny drives an hour west to visit Mel and Kirsch. It’s a Friday, after work, and she’s holding a bloody paper towel to her forehead. Working at a juvenile detention center for students that had committed violent crimes had seemed like a good idea at twenty-six, but now, years later, it’s become painful. Today’s injury came from a student who had thrown a chair across the room, she’d ducked, but one leg had caught her just above the eye.

“Danny?” Mel makes her sit down, and patches her up with butterfly bandages and gauze. “You really should have that looked at.”

“I’m okay. How is he?” Danny winces as Mel’s face falls. “Not good?”

“He can eat and breathe on his own. It’s progressing quickly, much more than normal.” She sits across from Danny. “I don’t know what I’m going to do when it gets worse. I’m still working all my shifts back to back, and Emma and Erin have been staying here while I’m gone. I don’t think it’s right to leave him with them if he can’t eat or breathe though.”

“If it’s a weekend shift I can help. I can’t stay here the whole time, but I can stop by and make sure everything is okay.”

“It’s the middle of the week. I can’t find anyone, and I can’t keep asking them to put their whole lives on hold to care of him.” 

After Kirsch had been diagnosed with ALS, a progressive muscle disease, Erin, age nineteen, had left college to care for him while Mel worked. She worked four days a week at the gas station, and stayed home when Mel worked three twelve hour shifts back to back at the hospital. Emma, age eighteen, had graduated high school a year earlier and was taking nursing courses at the community college, helping at home when she could. They could barely manage even with Kirsch breathing on his own. Having them trying to manage breathing tubes was a recipe for disaster.

“I’ll ask around and see if anyone I know can help.” Danny takes the ice off her forehead, and gets up. “Is he in the living room?”

“Yeah. He’s resting, watching tv.”

When Danny opens the door, Kirsch is sitting in his wheelchair, slumped over slightly. 

“D-bear.” He smiles, and coughs, fluid rattling in his lungs. “How’s life going?”

“It’s going.” Danny sits across from him, trying not to cry when he struggles to lift his head vertically, his neck twisted at a painful angle. It’s been two   
weeks since her last visit, and he’s gone steadily downhill. “How are you?”

“Not so hot, D-bear, not so hot.” He coughs some more. “How’s Laura?”

“Better. She wants to come visit on Sunday, if you’re up to it.”

“Sounds awesome.” He succeeds in sitting up straight. “I wanted to ask you to help me with something.”

“Sure, what is it?” Danny hopes it’s not end of life arrangements, because she doesn’t think she’ll be able to keep it together if that comes up.

“I’m not going to get better. Soon I won’t be able to breathe or talk or move at all.”

“Kirsch, please, don’t.” Danny closes her eyes, trying to keep the tears back.

“Make sure they aren’t alone. Just…keep in touch with them when I’m gone. None of us have any other family, I need to know that someone’s going to look out for them.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. I’ll be here.”

“Thanks D-bear.” Kirsch half smiles, exhausted. Danny squeezes his hand and gets up.

“I’ll be here Sunday.”


	10. Chapter 10

The Sunday visit is painful. Kirsch doesn’t have much energy for talking, and after a few minutes Carmilla gets up and leaves abruptly.

“How are you?” Danny apprehends her in the kitchen, keeping her from leaving the house. “It’s a lot, I know.”

“It never gets any easier.” Carmilla whispers, hands shaking. “It’s always like this, and she’s going to have to go through it with all of you. Every human she ever knows. Maybe even me.”

“Hey, stop.” Danny hugs her, trying to get her to snap out of it. There was always a time for panicking and breakdowns, but not now, not in Mel’s kitchen. “She has you, she has JP, she’ll get through it. She’s tough.”

“I know. It’s just really hard.” Carmilla steps back, and Danny lets her go. Laura’s new immortality has been hard for all of them to adjust to, but Carmilla had been taking it hardest recently. It’s not easy.

Later Laura and Carmilla take a train to Ottawa, to visit some of Carmilla’s friends, and to have more tests done at one of the hospitals run by vampires. JP takes off too, on some vaguely explained vampire mission. It’s the closest thing to normal that Danny has seen in months.

******

Laura and Carmilla leave in early December. Laura is well enough to travel, and Carmilla is worried about people noticing them if they stay too long. Perry tried to get them to stay for the holidays, but Carmilla has already bought the train tickets, and won’t reconsider. Danny helps Laura pack, not wanting to be intrusive but wanting a few moments alone.

“Where are you going to go?”

“Carm got tickets to get as far as Pennsylvania. She has some friends in Philadelphia, and we were going to go cross country to the hospital in Arizona after that. They wanted me back weeks ago to make sure that I’m actually healed up correctly, so they’ll do some tests.” Laura zips her backpack, and helps Danny take the sheets and blankets off the bed, throwing the sheets in the laundry and folding the blankets. 

“You’re going to be safe, right?” Danny still has reservations about Laura leaving, even if she’s mostly recovered. 

“Yeah, I don’t think Carm is letting me go back to South America for a while. We’re staying in the U.S. and Canada for a while, and then heading to Paris in June to see Mattie.” 

“Text me, okay? Let me know you’re not dead in a ditch somewhere.”

“Danny, I’ll be okay. I’ll call when I can, and we’ll come back soon. It’s just kinda driving Carmilla crazy, staying here.” Laura shoulders her bag. “Take care of Laf and Perry for me.”

“Okay.”

“I’m going to miss you.” Laura hugs Danny unexpectedly, and Danny leans down, folding around her. 

“I’m going to miss you too.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry that I haven't updated this in so long. Life has been really really insane the last few weeks. I'm going to try to update more after this!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is a little bit of an infodump at the beginning with backstories but then I become trash later on

None of them have much family left. Danny’s parents had killed themselves while she was still in elementary school, and Laf’s parents had been killed in a car accident when they were sixteen. Perry’s parents are both still around, and she keeps in shaky contact with them. Her older sister’s death had made family life difficult, and contact was down to Passover and a phone call or two around the winter holiday season. 

They’ve never made much of the holidays, it had always seemed like too much effort, and for what? No family or friends to share it with, no warm childhood memories to relive. Laf and Perry would make a halfhearted attempt at Chanukah some years, but the little candles reminded Perry of Betsy, and Laf of the times before their dad got dementia.

Danny thinks she must have celebrated Christmas as a child. Hazy memories of a tree in the kitchen, cookies baking in the oven. Little cookies shaped like Christmas trees, the way her dad had liked them. Little cookies burned to a crisp, her mother lying on the living room floor with the heroin needle still in her arm. Hands with pink sparkly nail polish shutting the oven off, turning on the tree lights, calling the police to come collect the body.

As crappy as the memories that accompany them are, the winter holidays are nice. Ice skating on the little pond behind the house, trudging through the snow to get to the candy shop on main street. Sharing cocoa and little chocolate snowmen on a park bench under a maple tree draped in twinkly lights. Walking home at night, the stars spreading out into infinity above them. Orion. Cassiopeia. Sometimes a streak of light will dark across the sky, sometimes Laf will spot a satellite moving slowly across the stars. 

They stumble in late, soaked to the skin, shutting the door tightly against the bitter cold before stripping off the heavy coats and boots, hanging the soaking clothing in front of the heater.

The room is chilly, and they remove each other’s damp clothes. Hands against her skin, her lips brushing against the scars on Perry’s throat, Laf’s shirt tossed onto the shoe rack. Fingers trace down the scars on her stomach and then lower, and Danny moans into Laf’s mouth.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been like a month since I've written anything, I'm so sorry. This chapter is kinda out of place but it's Danny centric and I didn't feel like opening a new fic for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm starting to wrap up after this, so if there's anything else you want me to cover put it in the comments!

They’d managed to leave Silas, Danny isn’t sure when. A few weeks after the battle, a few months. She had a teaching degree, what was left of the Silas faculty had reviewed her transcript and decided that despite the chaos, she had completed the necessary requirements. Laf and Perry were in similar positions, and Kirsch had decided to drop out. He’d always struggled in school, and everyone had always been shocked that he was able to remain at Silas despite his many failed classes. 

“He was on the list for this year’s sacrifice. More of a backup than on the first pick list, but he was useful to have around. No family, not too bright. He was here on an athletic scholarship. No one would have ever noticed he was missing.” Carmilla sifts the loose dirt on the floor of the softball dugout through her fingers. “That’s how they get a lot of the sacrifices. Full scholarships to students with no surviving family members.”

“Was I on the list?” Danny cracks open another can of bud light, and Carmilla makes a face.

“Ugh, your generation has no taste.”

“Well maybe life as an Austrian princess gives one an appreciation for the finer things in life. Growing up in an apartment complex in southern Iowa means you take what you can take without getting caught.”

“Whatever.” Carmilla drinks from her bottle of wine, arms shaking slightly.

“Was I on the list?”

“Yeah, probably.” Carmilla shrugs. “Mother would have me look over the files sometimes, to see who I thought I’d be able to take easily. I saw yours.”

“Pretty pathetic, huh?”

“Losing family isn’t something to be ashamed of.”

“They killed themselves.”

“I know.”

“It’s pathetic.”

“Whatever.” Danny watches Carmilla finish the bottle and then slump back in the corner. Her skin is tinged with gray, she hasn’t been eating.

“Why didn’t you take me?”

“Too big, the fish would have choked.”

“Funny, bloodsucker.” There’s silence, and Danny wonder’s what was in her file. Information on her parents, her Aunt. No records that her Aunt had died, of course. They probably wouldn’t have bothered updating it with that. Carmilla had seen it though. 

“They’d have a few students in each year on scholarship, in case the fish woke up and they needed to put it down again. More students in the years right before the sacrifice, with the most as freshmen the year of the sacrifice. We’d take freshmen girls first, then older ones. Then non-female students if it came to that. They’d planned badly that year, and Mother must have been desperate if she resorted to radical red and broconut. Always a stickler for tradition, she was.'

“Why didn’t they take me then?”

“You’d already overpowered me once. Too much trouble to try and take you. Besides, we try to limit the number of Summer Society members we take. They tend to fight back.”

“Comforting.”

Carmilla starts shaking again. She hasn’t eaten in days, or at least Danny doesn’t think she has, and her body is deteriorating. 

“You need to eat.”

“Give it another day or two. Then I’ll eat.” Danny is surprised be Carmilla’s direct answer.

“Why are you doing this to yourself?”

“Decades underground puts your sense of taste off.”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Carmilla shrugs, and cracks open another bottle of wine.

“I spent seventy years under the ground rotting in rancid blood. Sometimes I have to take a break from it or I start to lose it.”

“How many days has it been?”

“Ten.”

“Does Laura know?”

“Yeah.”

Danny drops the subject. She knows that trauma can make people do some crazy things, and that sometimes even the crazy things are better than the alternative.

“How’s it going sharing with the broconut?”

“Fine. He puts up with the light being on all night and I put up with the frat boy talk.”

“How’s Perry been?” The question is inserted casually, but Danny see’s Carmilla’s face pinch. She’s been waiting to ask this.

“I don’t know. I hear her screaming at night sometimes, but Laf seems okay most of the time, so it can’t be too bad, I guess.” Danny looks at the ground. “I’m sorry I don’t know more. It’s still…”

“Yeah. I know. It’s hard.” 

It’s been six months since moving to Canada, where Laf and Perry are from, and as far away from Silas as possible. Four people, crammed in a tiny apartment, trying to survive in between violent flashbacks and panic attacks. Danny and Perry orbit around each other, never in the same room at the same time. Danny goes to work early at a juvenile detention center, and sees Laf in the mornings before work, and can usually tell how Perry is doing by how they are. 

“How is Laura?”

“Same. Loves journalism classes, loves Boston, loves seeing the ocean. Wakes up screaming at two am. She’s staying with her father right now. Her pacemaker was having issues, so she had to get a new one.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s getting better.”

Danny looks across the field, wishing that she knew what to say.

“I have to go now.” 

“Okay.”  
“Keep an eye on Perry, okay?”

“Okay.”

Carmilla disappears in a puff of dark smoke as the sun sets, and Danny scrambles to gather up the beer cans and wine bottles before someone comes by too close up the park. 

Home isn’t a place she can go. It isn’t really home, it doesn’t feel like it. The cramped apartment, the tiny rooms. Sharing a room with Kirsch, avoiding Perry. But she’s never really had a home. Was home the little house with her mother’s heroin needles strewn about? Her aunt’s apartment, where she slept on the couch for the three years she lived there? Maybe it was the Summer Society, but that had ended when she found her sisters lying scattered on the ground, throats torn out, eyes wide and unseeing. It’s not here, not anywhere. 

*******

Perry mumbles in her sleep and Danny slides an arm around her, holding her close until she quiets. Laf is curled up with their back against Danny’s.  
This is home.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything is going to be kinda gloomy from here on out.

Kirsch dies at the end of Summer, just as the leaves are beginning to turn. The funeral is quiet, the Callis family has many friends, but no extended family. Danny is a pallbearer, as is Carmilla. 

After the funeral Danny returns to the grave and sits next to the pile of dirt. It’s getting dark, but she wants a few minutes to say goodbye.

“Hey.”

“I’m sorry it ended this way.”

“I’m going to miss you.”

She swallows, closes her eyes. There should be more to say, but all she has are years of memories that she doesn’t know how to deal with.

“When we moved into that little apartment and had to share a room I was really unhappy for a lot of it. Some nights when I woke myself up screaming you’d stay up with me until I could go back to sleep, or you would crawl into bed with me and hold me until I stopped crying.”

The words won’t come out right, and Danny doesn’t know what the right words are.

“I really appreciated that.”

Maybe there aren’t any right words. Maybe he’s just dead and gone.

The last traces of light are hovering on the horizon and Danny sifts her hand through the loose dirt.

“Goodnight bro.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long, life has gotten a little bit crazy.

Danny retires first, choosing to take the benefits offered early instead of sticking around in hopes of a better offer. The injuries are harder to recover from every year, and the school has refused to give her any aid in the classroom. It’s better to leave before she gets seriously injured.

A year and a half later inky streaks start to mark Perry’s back, staining her spine, and reaching across her ribs. Laf runs tests, and they all come up negative. No biological source. 

When the fainting starts, the headaches, the hallucinations, they recognize the symptoms. Right after Silas Danny and Perry had had them, side effects from the cursed sword. Laf had made a combination of drugs to keep the curses at bay, but this meant that they weren’t working. 

Laf runs more tests and makes more potions to try to help, but Perry keeps getting worse. Soon she has difficulty walking, and the pain meds she takes for the headaches make work impossible.

One night Perry begins vomiting blood, and Laf and Danny know that this is out of their hands. The research hospital that Laf works at has been caring for Perry up until this point, and sends them a referral to the vampire hospital in Ottawa, the largest in Canada.

There’s hours of testing, Perry being passed from cold hospital room to cold hospital room, Laf and Danny left in the waiting room.

“Do you think they’ll be able to help her?” Danny’s hands are shaking and she can’t remember being this scared. She can’t imagine a reality without Perry, can’t imagine loosing someone else.

“I don’t know.” Laf takes Danny’s hand and they cling together, trying to hold onto hope.

The curses are shutting down Perry’s body, organ by organ.

“Possibly a month if we keep her here, closer to two weeks if you bring her home.” The doctor speaks gently, but every word cuts like a knife.

“There’s nothing you can do?” Laf’s voice is shaky, and Danny has never heard them sound this broken.

“Most people with curse damage extending this far die two or three weeks after initial exposure. It’s catching up with her. I’m sorry.” 

They’ve spent fifty years cheating death, seeing Laura cheat mortality, but this is it. A brick wall. 

They wheel Perry out to the car in a wheelchair. Hospice is bringing a hospital bed in a few days to make it easier to care for her when things get worse. 

Perry sits in the backseat where she’ll be safer in an accident, and falls asleep quickly, the new pain meds making up for the painful sleepless nights of the past weeks. Laf drives, and Danny sits beside them, reading the map, keeping an eye on traffic. The car is quiet but for three people breathing. Two soon. No. Danny can’t think about that.

Out of the city they drive, the sun beginning to set. Danny sits silently, staring ahead. Small towns, muddy roadsides, snow from the plows still piled up in some spots. When she opens the window she can smell spring in the air. Perry has always loved spring. And summer. And fall, and winter too. 

A small sob echoes through the car, and it takes Danny a moment to realize it isn’t her. 

“Laf.” Streetlights illuminate the inside of the car for a moment and Danny sees tears streaming down their face. “Pull the car over.”

“It’s only a few more miles. I can make it.” Laf tries to wipe their face, but new tears follow.

“No. Please, just stop the car.”

Laf pulls over and parks, then slumps against the steering wheel. Danny leans over, rubbing small circles across their back. 

“You try to sleep a little. I’ll drive.” They swap seats and Danny drives. The town seems familiar and alien. She’s been here for fifty years, but it’s changed. Soon Perry will be gone, and it won’t seem like home anymore. It already feels wrong.

Danny parks, and sends Laf into the house to clean themselves up. She watches as lights illuminate the rooms in the little house. 

Danny picks up Perry and carries her in, lying her on the couch while she brings in the wheelchair, the meds, the prescriptions. The house is locked up, and Perry is semi awake, the pain meds wearing off. Danny carries her into the bedroom and helps her into her pajamas, tucking her into bed.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, sorry. School is really insane these days but senior grades are frozen so once college interviews are over I should be able to update more!

Laf and Danny sleep on either side of Perry, cradling her gently. Laf falls asleep quickly, eyes red, and Perry soon follows, a fresh dose of painkillers putting her out again. Danny doesn’t sleep. How can she?

Danny lies beside Perry, gently running her hands through Perry’s hair. There have been so many nights like this, lying in the dark, not going anywhere or doing anything. Just listening to the others breathe. So many nights full of nothingness, sleep, dreams. 

Fourteen nights. That’s all that’s left, and it’s hard to say what the last few would be like. Two weeks. They’ve had half a century together and it’s boiled down to two weeks. Two weeks to remember her voice, her eyes, the creases on her hands from where they’d cracked and bled every winter for as long as Danny had known her. 

She would be gone, and the thought is tearing into Danny, and she closes her eyes. She needs to hold this in, needs to not wake them up. But the tears leak out of the corners of her eyes, and she sobs silently. More than fifty years ago they’d almost lost one another. It’s catching up to them. Death.

Perry shifts slightly and mutters something, grasping for Danny’s hand.

“Don’t cry.” She whispers. “Please.”

“Go to sleep.” Danny kisses her forehead. “Go to sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm thinking of writing some Xena fic. Probably Xena/Gabrielle. Would anyone read that?


	16. Chapter 16

Laf goes to the lab the next morning to sort out some final projects and shut down what can be shut down. The vampires are understanding, they have to be, to work with humans. Humans live and humans die, the vampires have lost both opportunities. 

The family spends a few days driving around, visiting people, places. They don’t have many friends, playing surrogate parents to JP, base camp for Laura and Carmilla, their history at Silas, all of this has made it difficult to make connections with people. They visit Mel and her kids and grandkids. They visit Mattie, where she’s living in Montreal. They drive through tiny villages, walk through parks humming with the first hints of spring. 

They curl up on the futon at night, watching movies, eating popcorn. The pain medications have given Perry some relief, even if they sap her energy. She smiles for the first time in weeks, relaxed instead of ridged in pain.

She lies curled between them, sleepy but warm and comfortable. They curl around her protectively, forming a barrier between her and the world. 

On the fifth day Perry is too weak to stand. She sits bent on the edge of the bed, trying, but eventually she has to lean on Danny to slowly walk to the bathroom.

“I’m fine. Just tired.” Perry sits on the toilet seat and Danny looks to Laf. This is the beginning of the end.

The next few days pass slowly. Perry stays in bed most of the time, swaddled in blankets and oat packs, either Danny or Laf coming in to check on her. She looks through photos on her laptop, sees the life she had. It was a good life. But it’s winding down.

Eight days after the diagnosis Danny calls Laura. The call is short, there’s so much that could be said but so little that needs to be. Laura and Carmilla need to come home.

The night before Laura and Carmilla are due to fly in Danny lifts Perry and carries her into the bathroom. There’s a tub of warm water, and Danny gently removes Perry’s robe and lowers her into the water. Perry winces as her body settles on the bottom, the pain medications have started to wear off.

Danny washes her gently, tipping her backwards to wash her hair, rubbing the soapy cloth over her arms and legs. She’s about to help Perry out when Perry takes her hand.

“I love you.” Perry whispers the words, and there’s no fear in her eyes, just warmth.

“Hey, I love you right back.” Danny kneels down on the floor and leans against the edge of the tub. “I’m always going to.” She tries to smile, but it doesn’t quite work, and she settles for not crying.

“I wanted to tell you before…I wanted to make sure you know.” Perry’s voice is small, and Danny almost loses it right then.

“I know.” They sit in silence, Perry gazing up at Danny. Danny studies her face, hammering it into her brain. 

“I told Laf yesterday.”

“What did they say?”

“They cried.” Of course. “Take care of them when I’m gone. Take care of each other.”

Danny nods, and helps Perry up. She dries her, wraps her in a blanket, and carries her out and tucks her into bed. She pulls on her pajamas, and crawls into bed beside Perry. Laf is out late, making funeral arrangements. They get in later, curling around Perry.

Laura and Carmilla get home the next day, JP too. They hug Perry, and talk in hushed voices with JP. It feels like a funeral already.

There’s a few days of soft reminiscing, of short trips to local parks, of movie nights.

Eleven days after the diagnosis Danny wakes to soft sobbing. It’s not Laf, as it often is, but Perry. Laf is already awake, holding her, and Danny moves closer.

“Perry? What’s wrong? Are you in pain?” Danny strokes Perry’s hair, and kisses her forehead.

“I’m scared.” Perry whispers. “I don’t want to die.” Her hands shake, and Danny takes them, kisses them.

“We’re right here with you. We’ll be right here with you until the end.”

“Please don’t leave me.”

“We won’t. We love you. We always will.”


	17. Chapter 17

Three days later Perry has been moved to the hospital bed by the living room window. She’s in constant pain, sometimes drifting in and out of unsteady sleep.

“She wants some alone time with you.” Carmilla is the last to leave the room, and Laf and Danny go to Perry’s side. The end is close, they can see it. 

“We’re here. We love you. Don’t be afraid.” They sit on either side of Perry, holding her hands. She drifts in and out of consciousness. 

“I love you.” She whispers, weakly squeezing their hands. 

Her breathing slows, the gaps between each breath widening. Laf and Danny whisper soft words, and cradle her hands gently.

When she’s past there’s a few minutes of silence. It seems too much like the world they’d been in a few minutes ago, the only difference is one less breath in the room. It seems like there should be something, something great and terrible to mark her passing, but there isn’t.

Laf cries, and Danny holds them, but there’s nothing either of them can do.

The morgue is called, a van shows up to take her away. Danny stares out the window at the gloves the morgue workers pull on, the stretcher, the body bag. It’s so sterile, so impersonal. 

Danny tugs the covers back and lifts Perry gently, cradling her in her arms. She carries her through the small house, out the door, and lies her gently in the body bag. 

She kisses her forehead, and zips the bag.


	18. Chapter 18

Years pass. There’s a space that can’t be filled, but there have always been spaces that can’t be filled. This is just a bigger one.

Danny feels the first twinge five years after Perry has passed. A few nights later Danny feels Laf’s fingers stop halfway down her back, and hears a choked sob. Danny is dying.

They don’t bother with the doctors, don’t bother with any life expectancy estimates. Death is coming, and it doesn’t matter when. It just matters that it’s happening.

Danny researches medically assisted suicide. She’d never consider trying it, never consider leaving Laf before she absolutely had to. But the last few days of Perry’s life had been so painful.

As the weaker painkillers lose effect and Danny moves on to stronger ones, Laf becomes pale, terrified.

“I can’t remember your name.” They whisper one night. “That was the first sign with my dad.”

“The first sign?”

“Alzheimer’s.” 

As Danny gets worse so does Laf. Laf finds the medically assisted suicide website left open on Danny’s computer and doesn’t say anything.

Later Danny looks over at them and sees tears running down their face.

“Is it the suicide website? I’m sorry…”

“No. I can’t remember her name.” Laf shakes their head, and Danny sees their hands shaking. “I remember her, but not her name.”

“Perry.” Danny pulls Laf close to her side.

“I made a poison that will kill you quickly, without any pain. You’ll just fall asleep and never wake up.”

“You didn’t have to do that.” Danny feels guilty, guilty that she’d put Laf in that position.

“I’m coming with you. I can’t die the way my father did.”

“He died in a car crash, didn’t he?”

“He was dead before that. The thing that died in that crash wasn’t him.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes.”


	19. Chapter 19

They set a date, long enough for them to call Laura and Carmilla, and JP. Long enough for them to sign over all their possessions to JP. Long enough to try to give an answer to Laura and Carmilla.

“I’m sorry.” Danny takes Laura’s hand. 

“Don’t be. I saw Perry when she was sick. If you can save yourself from that then…then you need to do that.” Laura blinks back tears, and Danny wants to cry too. Laura looks the same she did the day Danny met her. Same face, same smile. Her eyes are sad though, and Danny knows that this will only deepen the sadness. But either way the sadness will be deepened.

“Take care of yourself. Take care of Carmilla. Take care of each other.”

“We will.”

“I love you.”

“Love you too.” Laura hugs her gently and leaves the room, tears beginning to fall.

Carmilla comes in next. 

“You’ll protect her.”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m going to miss you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Carmilla smiles, and kisses Danny’s forehead. “Good luck. With whatever comes next.”

Carmilla is gone too, and Laf comes in and sits next to Danny.

“They’ve all gone into Ottawa to stay the night. So the police don’t suspect them.”

“Okay.”

Laf turns off the rest of the lights in the house and curls up next to Danny.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“I don’t know.”

“We’ll see her again, soon.”

“I know.”

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

They exchange words in soft voices. It’s late, they can see the streetlights outside become steady, less headlights passing beneath them. Laf pours out the poison, enough to kill both of them fairly quickly. It’s like falling asleep, permanently.

“Are you ready?” Laf supports Danny, holding her up while she drinks, then lowers her back down. They drink, and stack the cups neatly on the stand, and write the time down on a scrap of paper. They curl together arms and legs tangled together, hands clasped on top of the blanket. 

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

Laf drifts off first, and Danny kisses their forehead, feeling her eyelids grow heavier.

She closes her eyes, and lets her aching body sink down into something deeper.

Peace embraces her, and she hears Perry calling to her in the distance, and smells fresh baked brownies.

She’s home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thank you to all of you that stuck with me on this fic! I didn't mean to ship this ship, it just kinda happened, and thank you for tolerating the huge amount of angst that I write. <3


End file.
